Sea☆A Babbling

Before continuing, make sure you're aware that anything written in this post is purely my OPINION, which I have a right to share. If you don't agree with it, then you don't have to read it, so no hating.

Okay, so I told myself when my Sea☆A CDs came I would review them on my blog. Primarily so that I actually give a listen to all the songs, cause I have a tendency to ignore songs I haven't heard before out of pure laziness. However, I'm relatively... no... very inexperienced in "reviewing" things, and I don't really have a particular way of doing so because of this. I've not reviewed near enough to comfortably "review" anything. So instead I'm going to "babble". In other words, I'm just going to talk about it and what I think of it as I have it playing on repeat in the background. So, without further ado (I guess) let's get one with this.

  

Single 1: DREAM SHOOTER

Tracklist:

01. DREAM SHOOTER

02. Soda Sound Fountain

03. DREAM SHOOTER (Off Vocal)

04. Soda Sound Fountain (Off Vocal)

Before I get to talking about the actual songs, I wanna say one thing about this. The fact that both the a-side and the b-side have instrumentals makes me SO happy. As a dubber, this allows for the possibility of producing a dub of the b-side without the concern of if it'll make a good instrumental. Buono! does this aswell, and honestly it's one of my favorite parts of them. Now if only they had instrumentals for their albums... Oh well.

Anyway, we'll start off with DREAM SHOOTER. This song was their debut, and the PV (as posted below if I remember) was uploaded to the "lantis" youtube channel. It was a while ago, but I think Chiima is the one who original sent me the video. I loved it. The opening, which isn't in the mp3, basically starts right off the bat saying that these girls aren't Japanese. Actually they're Singaporean. And, as someone who has dreamed of being able to perform Japanese, even though I'm in America, this really excited me and inspired me in a sense. Of course, the girls seemed to get a bit of hate as well for the exact same reason. I remember some of the comments on the video at the time including things like "These girls should sing their own language" or something. But there seemed to be just as many comments defending the girls, so I wasn't too worried about it.

As for the song itself, it's a really cute song. Unfortunately, it's a "chorus" song, as I like to call it. Meaning all four girls sing the whole song, there's no solos or small groups. This is kinda nice, since the girls blend amazingly, but it's a shame you don't get to hear any of their unique voices.  But the song does give off a "group" feel, I suppose. I do love the beat, also the fact they through a lot of English words in the mix. (I've always enjoyed when English words are used in Japanese songs, I'm not entirely sure why to be honest.)

Overall this song is an amazing song, the fact it's their debut just goes to show how much potential this group has. When I first watched it, I think I watched the video 3 or 4 times in a row. Haha. Well I know one thing, I subscribed to lantis immediately in hopes that I'd be able to see more from this group soon. Sure enough, I was glad I did. But it's not time for that yet. So enjoy the DREAM SHOOTER PV and then we'll move onto the b-side.

Okay, so moving onto Soda Sound Fountain. I'm honestly listening for the first time now. I'm actually surprised at the contrast to DREAM SHOOTER! This song seems to show a cuter side of the girls, the pitch of the song is a bit higher than it's a-side. I don't know the girls voices very well, but I'm happy to say I'm sure there's duets in this song. That's also a nice contrast. This song kinda sounds like a song you'd hear at an amusement park to me... Maybe I'm just weird, but it just has that fun, playful sound to it I think.

I'm making a new paragraph because the song finally ended and is repeating now. Yeah, probably a bad reason. Listening to the lyrics, from my limited understanding, it sounds like the song is from the perspective of a girl with a crush on someone (lines like "I like you(/him?)" give that away clearly) but I would guess the girl is a child because this song has a really innocent feel to it. Lines lines "I want to play together with you" and "Let's dance, let's play, let's sing", they give the song a really innocent kind of love feel. Not to mention the song name is "Soda Sound Fountain". Somehow that in itself makes me think of a child.

I will end with saying my translations may not be TOTALLY accurate, since I'm going by ear (cause I'm too lazy to go look at the lyrics booklet) and I only took level 1 and 2 Japanese. So uh... yeah, disclaimer I guess.

Single 2: DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS

Tracklist:

01. DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS

02. Ding Dong Ding

03. Renai Circulation (Valerie)

04.  DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS (Off Vocal)

05.  Ding Dong Ding (Off Vocal)

06. Renai Circulation (Off Vocal)

I really wanted to put a picture of the back too, but I couldn't find one. Oh well. Anyway, Yay for C-side solos! In case you're wondering, Valerie is the Yellow one on this cover and the number "1" on DREAM SHOOTER (the others are Beryl (Purple/16), Wynnie (Pink/7), and my favorite, Estelle (Orange/19)).

DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS, as far as I know, is the most popular Sea☆A song. Within reason, too. It's a very fun song. If you watch the PV, it has a video game feel to it. But really, it's just a fun song in the end. The opening is a good sign for the rest of the song's theme: "Guri Guri Hungry ja Muri Muri onaka suita", it's hard to translated for me, but trying I get "gry gry I'm hungry, I can't work with a empty stomach" or something. The song overall doesn't make much sense if you want to find a deep meaning or something. As far as I can tell, it's just a fun song. It's got a fun tune, and seems easy to dance too. 

And what else? What's that I hear? Solos and small groups? Yay! According to the live that Chiima sent me yesterday, those "solos" are duets, that, or the girls need to get the mics away from their mouth when they're not singing, but in the mp3 they're pretty clearly solos, I think. I can tell why people seem to favor this song over DREAM SHOOTER and Friendship Birthday. I personally like it the most of the 3. But you can decide for yourself.

Once again, this is my first time hearing the b-side, so bear with me. Unlike DREAM SHOOTER and it's coupling, Ding Dong Ding seems to really suit the theme of it's a-side. It really has a video game feel to it. I think 8-bit? Not completely, but it has quite a few 8-bit notes throughout the song. I can see the video game girls from the DELI PV in a video for this. This song, much like they're others, does have a fun sound to it, but I do think it has a bit more of a meaning behind it then it's a-side. 

Much like Soda Sound Fountain, it seems to have a meaning wrapped around liking someone. This time, though, it doesn't sound so much "innocent" as it sounds "pure". "Please stop time when we're like this". It is innocent when comparing to other songs, but it does seem a bit more mature than "soda fountains". Thus I conclude "pure". The bridge before the final chorus starts off "Ah, the color of the sunset is becoming heartrending". As it repeats, I seem to think this song as more "beautiful" than it is "cute". I really really like this song. And I'm glad I did this, if only for this song.

For Renai Circulation, I have heard it once when a project I'm subscribed to dubbed it. I think this is a cover song, but I'm not sure (but I think so). Valerie, I have to say, has a much cuter voice than I expected. The song, however, really suits it. I really like how it sounds. The song itself, in my opinion, it's a typical anime song. It has a bit of rapping, though, that makes me happy and kinda impresses me too. When I listen I kinda feel like this song has 3 different songs mixed in, for some reason. Maybe I'm crazy, but the rapping, opening line (That shows up throughout the song), and the choruses don't flow as well as a song should, in my opinion. But it's nice to hear the different... styles... I guess, with Valerie's voice. And I do really like this song, but it's not one of my favorite out of Sea☆A's 8 songs.

As for the meaning, it seems to be another love song. One line "Just that your laughing makes me smile", I believe, makes me think it's another purer kind of love song, but it's the only line I can understand without having to look at the lyrics. But the bits I understand throughout the song seems to give off that this is one of those songs with the meaning basically that "When you're happy, I'm happy". But I may be wrong.

Before I move on, I do want to mention that I didn't even know Sea☆A's songs were anime themes until I was re-watching the DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS PV and happened to notice one of the top comments was something mentioning it. Maybe I'm just oblivious, but yeah, I felt like an idiot. I just wanted to mention that, not sure why. Now before I finish this, I'm gonna eat lunch, so in the meantime please enjoy a groupdub I'm in of DREAM SHOOTER (or just move on since the rest will be below the video by the time you read this, haha).

Yum, that was good. So anyway it's time to move onto the last (well, last as of now) single. 

 

Single 3: Friendship Birthday ~Arashi no Yoru ni~

Tracklist:

01. Friendship Birthday ~Arashi no Yoru ni~

02. Shiawase♪Ranranran

03.  Friendship Birthday ~Arashi no Yoru ni~ (English Version)

04.   Friendship Birthday ~Arashi no Yoru ni~ (Off Vocal)

05.  Shiawase♪Ranranran (Off Vocal)

But before I talk about the song, I just want to say: I'm very happy that the colors from DELI showed up once again in this single. Beryl's wristband and the other girls' hair accessories. It really helped me while I was learning who was who, since at first I only knew Estelle. Beryl was pretty easy to learn too, but Valerie and Wynnie... well, I guess if I mixed them up in this post, it'll prove my point. But I'm pretty sure I have them right. I hope. ANYWAY back to the song.

Friendship Birthday ~Arashi no Yoru ni~ has a more serious tone than their previous a-sides, I think. I don't really want to spend too much time talking about the Japanese track since there is an English track that is the exact same music, but I'm guaranteed (almost hehe) to understand the lyrics. But before I just move on, I do want to say that I really like this song. It kind of sounds a bit like DREAM SHOOTER when it comes to the... flow? I guess. I don't like that too much, but the two songs are definitely both very pretty... Yeah now I'm gonna move on, sorry.

Shiawase♪Ranranran, my first reaction: -listens curiously- -first line comes on- -laughs-

This song is just so cute. As I should have probably gotten from the title, but I didn't cause I'm slow, it's a really fun childish song. It has child-friendly effects such as echos and a repetitive onomatopoeia or two, chanting, and fun music. This is the first coupling from Sea☆A that doesn't seem to be about love. I like it. I can see this being a song they perform for kids on children's day.

As far as I can tell, this really is just a kids song about happiness. Like... I don't really understand the meaning when I try other than happiness. But then, if it's for kids, that's all it really needs to be, isn't it? Why go overboard with the meaning when kids won't even understand? You might as well keep it fun and silly. I am not ashamed to admit that I do love kids songs. I love the Douyou Pops albums too. So this song... I can't not smile listening to it. It's just so cute! I love it.

Okay back to Friendship Birthday with the English version now. First of all, I'm really happy that they made an English version of their song officially. Occasionally I like to sing English versions that I write, and they don't always flow right, so the fact that they released a Japanese and English version is really cool to me. Also it gives me a change to critique and learn from how the official translates. Also it saves me the work of having to translate it for this. Yes, I'm lazy.

The lyrics are really sweet, the song is about love again, but this time it's a friendship love, not romance. This time, it's "I'm so glad to have found you!" And it really makes the person they're talking about sound very important to them more than just their looks or something. I really love the lines "Can you feel it? My hand on your hand. Overflowing courage and love. Feel the beat synchronize and our hearts harmonize, lifting me high above, into the blue sky and beyond." They're so touching and beautiful. I love this song, and maybe I'm a traitor, but I really prefer the English version. Check it out and compare the the Japanese version above and decide for yourself.

So that's it for the singles. Like I said, I'm not the best reviewer, but I really wanted to do this so. Well, if you're still reading, thanks for bearing with me for this long. 

Before I end this I do want to talk about two things. First, I want to announce to any of you who don't know and are interested: Sea☆A's 4th single has been anounced. It's called "Entry!" and will be released on November 14th. (I was misinformed that it would be released on the 4th, which made me mad cause my birthday is on the 5th. But looking it up to check the single name which I had forgetting, I noticed their site said "14" not "4" so I feel better xP)

Secondly. Any of you reading this who are Singaporean, Malaysian, Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, or Vietnamese may have the opportunity to join Sea☆A! That's right, Sea☆A is holding auditions. Since I am none of these ethnicities, honestly, I didn't look into much like the requirements or where they auditions will be held or anything. But if you are, feel free to check them out for yourself *HERE*.

That's all for now. I'm hoping to review BoA's THE FACE album when I get it in the mail too, so look forward to that~. That is, if you consider this "reviewing" ^^;. Bai~